
Book t \ 



ADDRESS f,t-y^ 



BEFORE 



^S 



THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 



OF 



|{oauoht 



if 



. at 



BY 



ION. CLARKSUN NOTT POTTER, LL.D., 



June 12, 1878. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETIES. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

Printed by Darby it Duvall. 

1S78. 



NEW YORK PUBL. LIHR. 

J'^f EXCHANGE. 






i-&X £» 




7 



'i y Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Literary Societies: 

Few Americans could, I think, come liere from the IS'orth 
^ for the first time by the route I have just passed over, without 

"^ emotion. 

The history of this State has been so distinguished and 
eventful ; she has had such large share in the foundation, 
the trials, the growths, and the triumphs of the nation, that 
no citizen can well enter her territory with indiflerence. Her 
very name recalls that sovereign whose reign was alike one of 
the grandest periods of English literature and English power. 
Every mile of the way hither is rich in the memory of great 
men and of great deeds. The route passes by the home of 
that wise and august man whose rare fortune it was to go 
down to history as the most faultless of heroes— so perfect 
that we even love to hear that he sonietimes yielded to a burst 
of feeling or an outbreak of temper. It passes Fauquier, the 
birthplace of that great jurist who had such large share in 
setthng the nature and powers of our National Government, 
and whose opinions, whether upon constitutional or other legal 
questions, have an irresistible logic and power. It goes near 
Montpelier, where dwelt that wise and pure President, who 
' was one of the ablest and most practical statesmen of his age. 

It winds round the noble hill where the Sage of Monticello— 
patriot, philosopher and statesman— dispensed a lavish hospi- 
tahty in keeping with his warm heart and liberal ideas. 

Washington, Jeiterson, Madison and Marshall, names sec- 
ond to none in all our national history. 

Then our route goes on by Charlottesville, the scene of 
some of the great elibrts of that wonderful orator, whose 



fiery patriotism and marvelous eloquence have flung a 
halo around the name of Patrick Henry. It passes 
through the grounds of that university where so 
many learned and distinguished men have been edu- 
cated, suggesting by contrast the days when Sir Wil- 
liam Berkeley " thanked God that there was within Virginia 
neither free schools, nor newspapers, nor printing." Then it 
follows down the fair Bhie Kidge, whose extended forests re- 
call the pioneers of the frontier, and notably that far-seeing 
woodsman, George Rogers Clark, "the Hannibal of the West," 
to whose wisdom and energ}^ and courage we so largely 
owe the territory between the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico. 

And so as we pass on from the homes of the Lees and the 
Masons to the country of the Randolphs and the Lewises, we 
come hour by hour upon some spot famous in history — some 
name that recalls great deeds. We cross streams that in the 
early time of LKlian hostilities, and again in later years of 
civilized combat, ran red with blood. We pass over fields 
where great armies have met in the shock of battle. We go 
by towns that were the homes of statesmen and jurists, men 
who in the Senate, in the forum, and in the Executive chair 
have given character and direction to the nation. Everywhere 
our way is rich in the memories and stirring from the events 
that it recalls, until we come at last, aglow with high thoughts 
and great recollections, to this home of education, planted amid 
all these great names and great scenes. 

Surely, if there were any virtue in the statutes and inscrip- 
tions with which the ancients surrounded their youth, that 
fired by the example of the good and great who had gone be- 
fore them, they might be excited to nobler eftbrt, you young 
gentlemen grown up among such scenes, living among such 
names, familiar day by day with these recollections — you, too, 
have always about you a like incentive to higher efi:brts and 
to worthier life. 



THE PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES OF VIRGINIA. 

I think a Northern visitor coming for the first time to Vir- 
ginia will also he siii-prised at how little it resemhles the South 
as a part of which we class it. The agriculture, the produc- 
tions, tlie face of the country, the mountain summits, the 
wooded ranges, the charming valleys, tlie swift streams, the 
bubbling springs here, are all foreign to what we are wont to 
consider as the physical features of the South. 

Indeed, the climate of Virginia is more akin to the climate 
of England than is either the climate of New England, with 
its rigorous winters, or that of the Southern States, with their 
extremes of heat, and as the colony was favored with a pro- 
ductive soil and other great natural advantages, the English 
came naturally and readily to settle here. 

Among these immigrants were many leading families, who 
brought with them to the colony considerable wealth, and 
they brought here perhaps more than to any other part of the 
continent, because more suited for such liabits, the pursuits 
and amusements of the land from which they came. Here 
as at home were large landed proprietors, and a distinct 
laboring class, and here, as there, grew up a love of the sports of 
the field, a fondness for outdoor exercise, and manly and vig- 
orous amusements. Here, even more than there, indepen- 
dence of opinion and liberality of thought prevailed, at the 
same time that a decent respect for precedent and authority 
was cherished, while higher education and elegant cultivation 
were not neglected. 

And thus it happened that Virginia, whose House of Bur- 
gesses was tlie first legislative chamber in the land, had come 
when the Revolution broke out, to be far the richest, the most 
developed, and the most influential of the colonies. 

THE LONG PREPARATION FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

The revolutionary war was no sudden nor accidental move. 
ment. Neither was it caused by any special measure of op- 



6 

pression. It was inevitable that, separated as the colonies 
were by weeks of time and thousands of miles of distance 
from the mother country, unlike as they were to that country 
in their situation, necessities, and opportunities, they could not 
be well governed from Great Britain. No matter how wise the 
ministry at home, who directed the colonial government, were, 
nor how good they were, they could neither understand nor 
appreciate what the far-off colonies required. And thus it 
was unavoidable that their government of the colonies should 
prove in the end irksome and oppressive. 

It was this necessity that gradually constrained the people 
of the colonies to separate themselves from their mother 
country. For them this separation was not only a serious and 
dangerous, but a sad and trying business. Their pride, their 
affection, their sense of their own weakness, their knowledge 
of the power of Great Britain, all united to make them de- 
termine upon it with reluctance. It was long years before the 
views of those who supported Henry's resolution against tax- 
ation ripened into the opinions Jefferson enunciated in the 
Declaration of Independence. 

During that period they went gradually from discussion to 
protest, and then from protest to resistance, and at last from 
resistance to revolution. Through all these years the leading 
.men of the colonies were necessarily and most seriously en- 
gaged in considering the principles of government ; what were 
the rights of individuals, what the just powers of rulers, what 
the duties of subjects, what the obligations of the colonies. 
And being compelled to consider these questions under new cir- 
cumstances and under conditions without precedent, they were 
compelled to consider them upon principle and to apply prin- 
ciples to the conditions in which they hved. Those days, too, 
were in themselves favorable to solid study and to sound reflec- 
tion. They were days of patient industry, of steady habits, of 
moderate gains and simple living. There was then room and 



-opportunity, as well as occasion, for deep and earnest thinking. 
No clicking telegraph gathered its outline of passing events 
from all quarters of the earth to engross men's interest and 
attention. No journal bristling with headlines of news, full of 
items for wonder or excitement, with leaders rich in editorial 
comment and suggestion, came to supply men daily with 
ideas and save them the trouble of studying and reflecting for 
•themselves. In those days men had little of the varied and 
general knowledge of our times, the knowledge of passing 
events. Life was easy and simple and natural, neither crowded 
nor hurried, but it was sound and solid and hearty. Things 
were then carried from point to point with too much ditficulty 
to make what was idle or unfounded, or friviolous, worth the 
carrying. 

And so, by much study and much reflection the men of the 
colonies prepared themselves for independence. After that 
declaration came a long and bitter struggle, throughout which 
•our Fathers maintained the highest resolution and the nobles^ 
devotion, and which, by the aid of France, resulted at last 
In triumphant success. After those years of strife in arms, 
there came yet other years in which the infant confederacy 
Tiept alive with difficulty the feeble light of national life. 
During all these years the principal men of these colonies 
were being educated in all that went to produce large-minded, 
■wise, just, and self-reliant public leaders, so that when finally 
'they came to meet in convention at Philadelphia, for the pur- 
pose of framing the National Government under which we 
live, perhaps no body of men that ever met to frame a gov- 
•ernment were better prepared for the duties before them, or 
TDrought to their task vcreater purity, ability, and wisdom. 

How wisely they fashioned, how largely and sagaciously 
they builded, having regard to the times and circumstances 
under which they built, we know. No one can read the debates 
of that convention nor those of the State conventions which 



followed, without feeling how full the time was of wise, able,, 
thoughtful men — men who dealt with principles rather than 
with forms, and who considered substantial matters more than 
matters of detail, nor without observing how notable the 
most distinguished of these men were Virginians. 

Speaking now to the descendants of the Virginians of that 
day, may I ask attention to the principles upon which the 
Fathers founded Government, to the circumstances under 
which they applied those principles, to the changes in the 
country which have since taken place, and to the evils which 
have arisen with these changes, that we may inquire whether 
their principles of government afford a remedy for such 
evils, 

THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE FATHERS FOUNDED GOVERNMENT.. 

The Fathers held three cardinal principles of government. 
Upon these all their systems, both of State and Federal au- 
thority, were based. The first was that government should 
be limited against absolute power. They had well learned 
that " liberty consists in the limitation of government;" that 
*' the many though strong to execute are often blind to per- 
ceive." They therefore established both their state and 
national governments by written constitutions, which were at 
once the source, the measure and the limit of their authority, 
and by the distribution of the powers of government into 
independent departments, and by various details they further 
provided for the fullest preservation of such limitations. 

Their second principle was that the powers of government 
should be localized so that the men of the locality should 
settle for themselves the things of the locality. 

The third of their principles was that there should be 
in this country no favored governing class, and so they for- 
bade titles of nobility and primogeniture, and the perpetua- 
tion of great estates. 



WHY THESE PRINCIPLES HAVE BEEN OVERLOOKED. 

Now, although the Fathers had come through long years of 
suffering and reflection to a clear conviction as to these prin- 
ciples, the circumstances which followed have tended to make 
their descendants lose sight of them. 

The establishment of the new government was followed by a 
great prosperity — a prosperity which, coming after it, was nat- 
urally ascribed to it, but would perhaps have come without it. 
Indeed, Macauley thought the same prosperity would surely 
have come had the government remained colonial, and was 
in the habit of pointing to like prosperity in Australia and 
other countries, whose natural conditions were analogous to- 
ours. 

Certainly the natural circumstances here were all favorable 
to prosperity ; an enormous territory ; a virgin soil, rich in 
every desirable production ; a salubrious climate ; great natu- 
ral conveniences for intercommunication ; no great difficul- 
ties of access for immigrants ; an European language, and 
room and welcome for all. Surely, the new States might well 
have been expected under any tolerable form of government 
to prosper. 

But not long after their establishment a new method of 
conveyance was introduced, which added wonderfully to these 
advantages. Nowhere in the world was the steamboat so 
well fitted to produce great results as in these States, with their 
long lines of coast and their mighty inland waters. This in- 
vention at once gave a new and marvelous development tO' 
the natural advantages and the natural unity of the land. 
For no sooner had the steam packet begun its journeys up the 
great rivers of the interior, than it drew together within day& 
of each other people before separated by weeks. Thus inter- 
nal trade was developed, and with it wealth and population 
increased, and by these in turn new means of intercommuni- 
cation were established. Roads were extended, Turnpikes- 



10 

built, Canals dug, Post-routes multiplied, Newspapers distri- 
buted. Day by day the people grew richer; the wilderness 
was step by step occupied aHd overcome ; trade and inter" 
■ course between difl'erent parts increased ; and better under- 
standing and greater homogeueousness among the people of 
the different States followed ; until at last the railway was in- 
vented, drawing together within hours the people whom the 
steamboat had only brought within days of each other ; and 
"then last, and most centralizing of all, the telegraph was in- 
troduced, putting all parts of the land into instant communi- 
cation with each other. 

Now, however due to these natural causes, it was not strange 
that men should ascribe the great prosperity following upon 
the establishment of the new government to the form of gov- 
ernment adopted. 

It is indeed most true that government cannot of itself 
•create prosperity, but it can, and, alas ! often does interfere 
with and prevent it ; and our government at least permitted 
the freest possible development of the natural advantages of 
the country, and so the American citizen, brought up to regard 
his Union and Constitution as the sum of human wisdom, and 
.justly proud of the unprecedented growth and prosperity of his 
country, came more and more to ascribe these blessings to the 
.form of government under which he lived, and with less and less 
thought of the reason for that Constitution and the principles 
it expressed, contented himself in eveiy country he visited by 
crying aloud to all men, to take pattern after his model Re- 
public. 

The discussion about the distribution of the powers of gov- 
ernment. 

Beyond this, the political parties into which the country 
was early divided, tended further to remove the original 
principles of the Fathers from notice. 



11 

In a great country where the people rule, there will be gen. 
■erallj two parties : one for having the governing power do 
much, the other for having it do less ; one for having the ex- 
ercise of government centralized, the other for having it lo- 
calized. One, the party which would hold up the weak, aid 
tb^ feeble, and protect the needy ; the other, a party insisting 
that, beyond preserving order and administering justice, gov- 
ernment should interfere with the action of its citizens as little 
as possible ; and that while the general government should 
Prescribe those regulations which atfect the whole people, local 
affairs should be left to the people of the localities. From the 
dual nature of the government established by our fathers out 
of the union of independent States, it followed naturally and 
inevitably that the party in this country in favor of extending 
government would seek a liberal construction of the Federal 
powers, while the party of less government would insist upon 
a strict construction of those powers. And these, indeed, were 
and have ever since continued to be the general divisions of 
parties in this country, except when some question of present 
paramount interest has for a time forced a special issue upon 
the people. And so from the beginning discussion went on 
about the respective functions and scope of the Federal and 
State authority. Year after year, it was debated whether par- 
ticular powers should be exercised by the Federal or only by 
the State government, as to what were the limits of the power 
of the one and the extent of the power of the other. But? 
during all the time of this discussion, discussions which went 
on, not only in the halls of legislation, and upon political 
platforms, but in every county store and around every bar- 
room fire throughout the land, men were gradually losing 
sight, in their disputes about the distribution of the powders of 
government, of the principles upon which the government was 
founded. Instead of realizing that the rights of States were 
of no advantage in themselves, except as they preserved the 
liberty of individuals, and that local government and limita- 



12 

tion of power might uuder new conditions be more readily 
obtained by direct restraints npon the central authority than 
by the strictest construction of the existing Constitution, it 
was deemed so settled that we had the best government the- 
world ever saw, that doubts of that were not even pei-mitted 
to be suggested. Indeed, the changes which went on in tlje- 
conditions of the country and of society, although rapid, were 
so gradual that no one thought corresponding changes in the 
Constitution necessary ; and there was, besides, a natural dis-- 
inclination to disturb an instrument obtained by compromises 
with so much difficulty. 

THE DISPUTE ABOUT SLAVERY. 

Meantime, by the aid of the gin, cotton had become one of 
the chief productions of the country, and the system of labor 
it had employed had reached great dimensions. New territo- 
ries had been acquired, whose acquisition the Fathers had not 
foreseen, and for which they made no provision ; and when 
these territories came to be settled, and government had to be 
provided for them, ihe introduction of slave labor into these 
territories became a subject of difference. 

The discussion that then grew up tended further to divert men 
from any consideration of the original principles of govern- 
ment; tor it was from its nature a discussion not about what gov- 
ernment ought to be, but as to what, from the nature of the 
compact between the States, were the rights of the States in re- 
spect of the Territories, and of this domestic institution. Not a 
discussion of the true principles of goverimient, but of the 
true construction of the agreement by which this Government 
was established. This question presently took precedence over- 
all other questions, and as no compromise nor settlement of the 
difference was arrived at, it finally lirought on a war — a great 
civil war, which divided our people. During that war the 
march of armies set the slave himself free, and put an end 
forever to the questions out of which the war arose. 



13 

THE GROWTH OF A PRIVILEGED CLASS. 

Meantime a privileged class had gradually grown up within 
the States. Beginning with small associations, allowed in the 
supposed interest of trade, corporations had been created, 
.and had been permitted in the same interest to increase and 
consolidate, until we had come to have a class of privileged 
and artificial ci'eatures, more dangerous than any hereditary 
aristocracy ; holding estates vaster than any noble ; having con- 
tinued existence ; without moral or personal accountability ; 
without conscience, and without possible inducement to public 
good ; having for their best object the private good of their 
corporators, often, only the wrongful gain of their managers. 
To-day, some of these corporations virtually rule the States 
which created them, and exercise a controlling influence in 
politics and business over thousands of miles of territory. 

So that when the war broke out we had already, in some 
'degree, insensibly lost sight of every one of the great princi- 
ples upon which the Fathers founded government — the limita- 
tion of government, the localization of government, and the 
prevention of privileged classes. 

But alter the war the slave was invested with suffrage, and 
that afforded a means by which adventurers sought to rule 
the South. The system of reconstruction that was adopted 
gave rise to new questions, and was followed by great evils 
.and great abuses, and of necessity therefore, by great sufler- 
ing and great dissatisfaction. It may be hoped that now 
.at least those evils have been checked, and that the war and 
its issues are finally over and belong to the past, and that, 
Testored once more to normal conditions, we may consider 
what are the ditficuities and evils which now confront us, and 
the remedies which they require. 

THE COUNTRY WE HAVE NOW TO GOVERN. 

You are about, therefore, young gentlemen, to go out into 
the world, and take upon yourselves the duties and occupa- 



14 

tions of men under a new condition of things. You go out. 
into tiie world at a time, too, when you need to realize the 
paramount importance of your duty as citizens. 

But to rightly understand what is now needed, we must 
clearly realize how ditferent is the present condition of 
these States from their condition when the Constitution was . 
adopted. 

At that time the thirteen States which formed this Govern- 
ment were entirely ,'sovereign and separate. They lay stretched 
along the Atlantic coast, having behind them a wilderness 
without limit, and in large part unknown. The people of 
those feeble States spoke indeed the same language, and had 
laws of the same general character, but their origins had 
been ditferent, their habits dissimilar, their views unUke. 
Communication between them was rare and difficult, trade 
paltry and unfrequent. Then a few roads were opened near 
the coast, along which great wains toiled slowdy with goods,, 
while on the more inland ways traffic was carried on by the 
pack-horse and the sumpter mule. Men drifted slowly down 
the rivers on rafts, or worked the flat boat and the batteau 
up the current by the aid of the sail or the setting pole, and 
thus carried on the inland navigation, now grown to over four 
millions of tons a year. Then a pound of tea or a silken 
kerchief was an unusual luxury, and a bright ribbon was a 
handsome present. Even Jefferson, when Secretary of State^ 
and called in haste to meet the Cabinet, was twenty-eight days 
of diligent traveling in going from his home to i^ew York ; 
and now one leaves i!^ew York at night and reaches Monti- 
cello comfortably the next morning. 

It was for States thus weak and separate and poor, for 
people thus distinct and frugal and thoughtful, with occupa- 
tions and habits and temptations wholly unlike those of our 
generation, that our Fathers sought to establish government. 
And if in establishing it they apprehended evils which never 
arose, and failed to provide for those which do now exist, it 



15 

was because the subsisting evils have come in with a growth 
riches, and consolidation wholly unprecedented, and mainly 
resulting from inventions and methods of intercommunication 
then unsuspected. So that the present wealth and centralization 
of the country could not then have been forseen, nor pro- 
vision made against the particular evils which attend them. 

But now all this is changed. Forty millions of people 
occupy a vast continent from one ocean to the other, rich 
in every form of production, of industry and of wealth ; bound 
together by great na'tional water-ways, by a vast system of 
internal improvements, and by all modern contrivances for 
communication. Great cities, enormous wealth, gigantic in- 
dustries, vast combinations of both capital and labor have 
grown up, and the feeble and struggling colonies of our Fathers- 
days, have come to be one of the wealthiest and most ad- 
vanced and most powerful nations of the earth. 

PRESENT DIFFICULTIES AND EVILS OF GOVERNMENT. 

But in poor and sparse communities government is easy. 
If there be but two men upon an island, each has room and 
liberty to do much as he pleases ; but crowd a thousand peo- . 
pie into a ship, and every one must give up some of his 
natural rights if he would not unduly trench upon the rights 
of the others, and so with increasing population and increas- 
ing wealth the difficulties of government begin; and now, 
with our vast cities, with our unequal distribution of property, 
with the grinding competition and the stifling rush that goes 
on everywhere for life, for work, and for wealth, we begin to . 
be beset with difficulties which our Fathers wholly escaped. 

What shall be the relations of government to the industries 
of the country; what provision it shall make for education, 
what for want ; how far labor may be furnished those willing 
but unable to find employment ; how far government should 
carry on great works of internal improvement ; how far it., 
should exercise control over the railways, telegraphs, and 



16 

.^ther great common carriers ; to what scrutiny it should sub- 
ject corporations ; what are the rights of capital, and what are 
the duties of capitalists, and what are the rights of labor and 
laboring men? these are all questions which in some degree, 
at least, we are Hkely to have to meet. We have, besides, un- 
like our Fathers, to legislate for a country knit together by 
■every form of instant communication. Men pass now from 
one shore to the other of this vast continent within a week, 
while the telegraph keeps every part of the land m constant 
communication with every other part, so that, practically all 
business, all trade, all discussions are carried on within speak- 
ing distance of the parties ; and this, while it enormously 
facilitates, enoi'mously centralizes business and power, so that 
the country, although far larger, is far more connected and 
homogeneous than the original States were. 

But, beyond the ditliculties arising from a crowded popula- 
tion, unequal distribution of wealth, and enormous combina- 
tions of industry and capital to which I have referred, many 
grave and positive evils confront us. On every side corrup- 
tion prevails. It has found place in the legislatures of the 
principal States, and has even, on some occasions, entered the 
•Congress itself. 

In a county whose founders intended to prevent privileged 
^classes, where they forbade hereditary titles, orders of nobility, 
continued accumulations of property and entailed estates, we 
have created corporations that hold vaster estates and are 
more powerful than any foreign nobility — artificial persons 
that never die, and which, while they continuously exist, having 
neither conscience nor feeling, are liable always to pervert and 
iibuse their powers. 

We have a Civil Service, in which over 100,000 persons 
hold their places at the absolute will and disposal ot the Pres- 
ident, and so entirely partisan in its character as to give rise 
-everywhere to grievous complaints and grievous evils. 



17 

None of these evils existed nor were foreseen in the time of 
our Fathers. They are the result of the growth of the country 
in numbers and wealth, and the corresponding increase in 
public gifts and places and patronage, and they require other 
remedies than any which the Fathers have provided. 

THE DUTY OF THE CITIZEN. 

Now government, always a serious work, becomes difficult 
just in proportion to the number and magnitude and variety 
of the interests governed. In our country it grows year by 
year more important and more embarrassing. This great 
business is, in other nations, usually given over to some 
selected or favored class, and they are rewarded for their 
attention to it by hereditary rank, and honor and power. But 
with us this is different. We have undertaken, in this coun- 
try, to conduct government for ourselves, and if it be not 
well conducted we have no one to blame for it but ourselves. 
And yet one often hears, at least in the section in which I 
live, worthy men (more especially divines and students and 
men of letters) speak with complacency of rarely or never 
voting, and of feeling no interest in politics, and taking no 
part in public alfairs ; as if the direction of public alfairs could 
be wisely or safely left to the ignorant or worthless, or to those 
who interest themselves in public affairs only for their own 
profit. 

In the earlier days of the Eepublic the conduct of govern- 
ment was indeed so easy that good citizens might without 
harm follow their avocations and leave public matters mainly 
to those who profited by following them. And this leaving 
public affairs to professed politicians brought politics into 
some discredit. But you may be sure, young gentlemen, that 
however it was formerly, the condition of public affairs is too 
grave, the evils in the body politic too threatening, and the 
necessity of change too imminent to longer permit such 
neglect. 



18 

REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT NOT A FAILURE, 

How, then, are these evils to be met ? To do so, must we 
abandon the principles upon which our Fathers founded thisGov- 
ernment, and hold that however good they were for that day 
they are not suited for our time and condition, or may we yet 
find within their principles the remedy for existing evils 'i 
For myself, I think that in a just adaptation of those principles 
to existing conditions will be found the required remedies, and 
that it is needless and idle to look elsewhere for them. 

Every now and then w^e hear worthy people, alarmed at pre- 
vailing evils, cry out that Republican Government is a failure, 
and that what we need is a despotism, a dictatorship, or ab- 
solute authority of some kind. Such people, it seems to me, 
gravely mistake the circumstances and the spirit of the age. 
Absolute authority by one man over a people is a condition 
which can exist only in less advanced communities than ours. 
In countries in which the railway and the telegraph and the 
newspaper exist, information is too rapidly disseminated, and 
combinations among the people are too readily made, to per- 
mit the assumption by any one of absolute authority. All 
over the world, it will be seen that wdjatever the nominal 
form of government, whether pure autocracy, like Russia, or 
a nominal monarchy like England, the tendency of gov- 
ernment is steadily and uniformly toward popularization. 
Everywhere that the modern means of inter-communication 
exist, the people are asserting more and more their authority. 
For the English speaking race, at least, republican govern- 
ment is not a failure. I have no fear, therefore, that the es- 
tablishment, of any personal despotism here is possible. No 
executive, however bold nor however dangerous, can venture , 
upon unauthorized powers, when the Congress is united 
against him. There is nothing to justify fear of such danger. 
But whatever may be thought about this, the truth is that 
under existing circumstances we need and must continue to 



19 

have popular government, and relief from existing e\'ils can 
only come from within, and by the action of the people. 
And I repeat that, as it seems to me, the remedy for these 
evils is to be found not in despotism, not in any general lim- 
itation of suiirage, not in seeking a new system of gov- 
ernment, but in a further application to existing conditions of 
the fundamental principles upon which the Fathers framed 
government. 

BUT RE-APPLICATION OF PP.IXCIPLES NECESSARY. 

If you consider the popular government of this age, you 
■will perceive that it has one essential feature which distin- 
guishes it from the popular government of the ancient times, 
and that is limitation. The wisdom of applying to such gov- 
ernments what Mr. Van Buren called " the sober second 
thought " of the people, has everywhere been recognized. 
So nearly every modern government is more or less a consti- 
tutional government — that is, government based upon a fun- 
damental charter which hmits the action and the powers of 
the rulers, so that whether hereditary monarchs or elected 
Presidents, there be certain things which they may not do. 
Undoubtedly this fundamental law can be changed, but with 
so much difficulty and after so much time that in etlect it 
answers as a constant limitation upon the first thought and 
the first wish of the people. 

This truth the Fathers fully realized, and they inserted into 
the governments. State and Federal, of their time, gi-eater 
limitations upon the authority thereby established, than had 
existed in government before, and all that in the then existing 
conditions were necessary. 

But notwithstaudino; the changes which have since taken 
place, trained to believe that our dual government was the model 
for government all over the world, occupied in discussing the 
distinbution of its powers, we have failed to make allowance 



20 

for such changes in the country and in- society as have 
meautinie taken place, and been uuwilhng to believe that any 
corresponding changes in our Constitution were required. 
Yet conscious of existing evils the cry has ever^^where gone 
up for reform and better administration of government, as if 
permanent reform could be secured, or better administration 
be permanently had without such modifications in the scope 
and powers of government as existing conditions require. 

FURTHER RESTRAINTS UPON LEGISLATION REQUIRED. 

Now, in the great States it has been found that abuses and 
corruption in legislation are mainly the result of private and 
special laws. Legislation by general law, which aiiects 
equally all the community, rarely affords opportunity for pri- 
vate gain. But the legislation which gives to particular per- 
'sons special privileges or monopolies — whether it be charters 
for ferries, or railways, or banks ; whether monopolies to light 
streets, or to carry passengers, or to land goods ; whether sub- 
sidies to construct works of public use, or to carry on com- 
merce ; or whether it be legislation which makes exception to the 
general burden and rule, by the relief which it affords or the 
stipend which it pays, or the advantage which it gives to partic- 
ular citizens — in short every form of legislation for the one at 
the expense of the whole ; such legislation proves rich in every 
inducement to deception, injustice, and evil. And the remedy, 
and the only remedy, which has proved effectual to prevent this 
is to be found in severely depriving the legislature of the 
power to legislate for any citizen in preference to or at the 
expense of the whole. 

I know that it is said that if we would choose better men 
to the legislative bodies we would have no corruption ; but 
when legislation is special and in private interest, when its power 
extends to giving away grants, monopolies, lands or other 
public property, how can we expect good men to be chosen to 



21 

the legislative bodies. Those who seek some gift or privilege 
from the state don't want such men there ; they want men who 
are willing to take bribes, or accept contributions, or receive fav- 
ors, and vote kindly for monopolies, or subsidies, or special 
relief in return. And the activity of those interested in legis- 
lative grants will always largely influence the selection of the 
members of legislative bodies whenever there is much to be 
gained from their private or special legislation. 

It is true that there has been but little corruption in Con- 
gress as yet, because there has been but little scope for private 
legislation there. Hitherto the legislation of Congress has 
been chiefly general. Doubtless its power to determine what 
shall be expended for public works and buildings in particular 
localities too often controls Representatives, and leads to evil 
combinations and log-rolling. But this influence is of a 'pMisi 
public nature, so that except in grants of the public lands, sub- 
sidies, and those provisions of the tarift' for protection so 
shaped as to give bounties to particular persons. Congress has 
hitherto had little opportunity for direct corruption. 

But year by year the private and special legislation by Con- 
gress increases. There have been many thousands of appli- 
cations to Congress during the present session alone, for some 
form of special relief. The very number of these claims of 
course prevents any intelligent consideration of them and 
defeats alike the power of Congress to do justice, and to dis- 
criminate against injustice, and affords as well opportunity as 
inducement to evil and corrupt legislation. 

Now, as I said, the remedy and the only remedy that has 
proved effectual to prevent this great and growing cause of 
evil, is found in further limiting the powers of the legislatures 
by depriving them of any power of private or special legisla- 
tion. In most of the great States amendments have there- 
fore been added to their constitutions preventing legislation 
except by general law. 



22 

What is there to now prevent the establishment of courts 
to determine all claims against the Government except those 
addressed to its special grace, and to require a judicial ascer- 
tainment of the facts in all cases whicli are dependent upon 
special favor ? And why should we not inhibit the Congress 
from granting favor or grace either at all or except according to 
some general rule ? In short, why should we not restrict 
Congress and all our State legislatures, as the legislatures of 
some of the States have already been restricted, from any 
legislation not general and in the common interest of all the 
people ? Just exactly as the country becomes greater and 
richer, and so has more to give away or to be plundered of ; 
just as government becomes centralized and paternal, just so 
it is the more important that legislation should be restricted. 

Doubtless, much of the special legislation of our day is not 
warranted by those constructions of Federal power which for- 
merly prevailed, and to return to such constructions would 
tend to prevent these evils. But such constructions involve 
a general narrowness of Federal power in conflict with the 
prevailing ideas, while to restrain Congress by direct amend- 
ment from such legislation will conflict with no one's views 
of how the Constitution should be construed. 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE SHOULD BE RESTRICTED AND DIMINISHED. 

So too with the the evils that exist in the civil service. 
When the Government was established the executive patron- 
age was so insignificant that no provision was made for its 
regulation. It will be seen by the debates of the first Con- 
gress that the framers of the Constitution wholly overlooked 
it. It increased gradually with the growth and power of the 
nation, until to-day it exceeds the patronage of almost any 
monarch. Until the telegraph was in general use this patron- 



23 

age, although nominally centered in the President, was, to a 
€ertain extent, restricted and localized. The necessities of 
discipline required that, in the days of tardy communication 
by mail, the control of Federal officials in States remote from 
the Capital should be relegated to some friend of the execu- 
tive there. But now, by the aid of the telegraph, the Presi- 
dent can discipline a postmaster in Texas as etficiently as in 
Maryland, and thus it has happened that to-day he absolutely 
and directly controls the life and conduct of more than 100,000 
otficials. If we say that each of these officials can control two 
votes beside his own, we have then over 300,000 voters depen- 
dent upon the Executive will, a number greater than the majority 
at many presidential elections. Indeed, at the last election, 
the party majority in Ohio and other States was even less than 
the actual number of Federal office-holders for the State. 

Beyond this, these office-holders form not only an army of 
voters, but an army of workers, so that to turn out an Ad- 
ministration once in power requires not merely a majority of 
the people, but a majority great enough to over-balance this 
army of office-holders and their followers and eflbrts. 

By thus uniting all the patronage under one control, we 
divide the country into two great parties, whose contest for 
that control threatens to destroy the Government. When 
patronage is localized the strife for it aii'ects only the localities. 
Men in Hartford or Columbus or Atlanta might contend over 
a postmastership or coUectorship, but such struggles, no matter 
at how many points, nor how bitter, could never disturb the 
Nation, nor do more than affect such localities. But centralize 
all the appointments under one control, and then the people 
at once divide themselves every four years in a strife for 
that control, as dangerous as it is demoralizing. 

Worthy men tell us that what is needed to cure these evils 
is a better administration of the Executive patronage. To 
secure this they would have competitive examination of appli- 



24 

cants, and officials selected for fitness and not for political 
services. But has competitive examination, as far as tried, 
diminished the existing evils ? Has any President really es- 
tablished a non-partisan civil-service ? Nay, has any attempt 
at this been even partially successful ? No ; the cure of this 
great evil lies beyond any administration of the civil service. 
It will be found, and it will only be found, in limiting the 
power of the Executive over appointments. 

Having centralized all the offices in one prize, and divided 
the people into two great parties to struggle for that prize, it is 
idle to expect the party which wins the prize will give it up to, ' 
or will divide it with, its opponent. No Executive who has 
been chosen to distribute the offices among his followers will 
be tolerated, who does not so distribute them. 

Belligerents may agree before the battle that certain things 
shall not be spoils of war, and then the victor will not so 
treat them. But no one need expect the victor to abandon 
the very thing contended for to the vanquished. All our real 
reforms have come, not from asking one party to give up tO' 
the other what it has just, by great eftbrt, wrested from its 
opponent, but by both parties agreeing in advance of the strife 
that in future differences, neither party shall exercise the ob- 
jectionable power. It is only limitation upon the future ex- 
ercise of power that is practicable. 

Now, why might not the appointment of many of these 
officials be localized ? And why should not the tenure of sub- 
ordinate officials, the mere clerks and tide-waiters, be made, 
at least for a fixed time, dependent upon good behavior only ? 
There are now over 40,000 postmasters. The salaries of 
most of them are very small ; an d such places are sought by 
tradesmen and shop-keepers, mainly because of the custom 
obtained from the persons who come to the post office for, 
their mails. Of course the people of any such locality 
can best determine what is the most convenient place for a 
post office, and what citizen would, on the whole, best serve 



25 

them as a postmaster, and they might be safely left to make 
the selection.* 

Neither in the army nor the navy has the President any 
absolute power of removal ; he can suspe nd officers from 
duty, but he cannot remove them from the service without 
trial. Surely the exigencies of the civil service are not 
greater than those of the military or naval ser vices. 

For myself, I think the postmasters at least in the rural dis- 
tricts might well be chosen by the pop ular vote. But if not 
chosen by the people of their respective districts, they might 
be safely appointed by the State, or county, or township, or 
municipal authorities, and this portion of the executive patron- 
age be thus happily ended. 

So with the vast numbers of clerks and copyists and 
counters, and other subordinates. Why should not a poor 
woraanwho writes, or a man who measures, be left to hold their 
offices, say, for four years at least, if they behave themselves 
meantime and do their work well ? Why should they need 
wake up every morning in anxiety for the future, and live in 
perpetual fear that their party services may not be efficient 
enough to enable them to keep their places ? Can we expect a 
decent civil service while the tenure of office is made to de- 
pend upon party fealty, and not upon good conduct ? 

When, therefore, we shall have relegated the appointment 
of Federal officers as far as p racticable to localities, and have 
made the tenure of other subordinate officials permanent, we 
may expect real reform in this regard, and not before. 

THE CREATION AND POWER OF CORPORATIONS TO BE LIMITED. 

So, too, is it not time to put some check on the growth and 
aggregation of corporations ? In these days of great wealth 
for some, and of great distress for others, is it wise to encour- 

* The President offered to appoint as postmaster at Fremont any person whom the 
people pr(>ferred ; and they held an election for the pnrpose, and he nominated the 
person they chose. If the people of Fremont are qualified to choose a postmaster for 
themselves, the people of the other villages must also be qualified to do so. 



26 

age the artificial perpetuation of accmnulated capital, and to 
build up railroad barons greater than the State, and to leave 

them at liberty to go on increasing and consolidating without 
restraint ? 

THESE CHANGES CONSISTENT WITH THE NATURE OF OUR GOVERN- 
MENT. 

But do 3^ou say the changes here suggested would be 
radical and excessive ? I reply, not at all ; they would 
simply be to apply the fundamental principles of gov- 
ernment to present circumstances and existing condi- 
tions. It is true the Fathers did not so apply their 
principles, but that was because there was in their time 
no necessity for such restraints. But, if the wise and 
great men who formed our governments — State and Fed- 
eral — were now to frame a government can you believe they 
would frame one that left to Congress such a range of dis- 
cretionary and unrestricted power and such inducements for 
evil and corrupt legislation as exist; or that left the Executive 
invested with a patronage vaster, more absolute, more danger- 
ous and more corrupting than that of any European monarch ; 
or that they would have permitted the growth and consolida- 
tion of the power of the great corporations — those Daimios of 
our day ? I cannot think so ; on the contrary, as it seems to 
me, the very principles upon which they framed government 
w^ould have required them to now frame a government very 
different in these respects from the government they estab- 
lished. 

For myself, I am profoundly convinced that the Fathers 
understood the real principles of popular government ; they 
foresaw, too, that as ci rcumstances changed, a change in the 
application of principles to new conditions might be necessary? 
and so they wisely made provision for amendments to the 
Constitution they framed. I agree that changes in that fun- 
damental law are not to be lightly made, but to make amend- 



r^/ 



ments ia order to apply principles to new conditions, is to con- 
tinue the Constitution, not to change it. True consistency is 
to be found in adhering to principles, not to methods. It is 
no more consistent than it is wise, for a man to be going ii bout 
always in the clothes of a child, nor to so blindly reverence 
the forms by which principles are expressed, as to refuse when 
circumstances change, to change the methods by which 
such principles are to be applied. 

WHY THIS IS A NATION. 

No, the Fathers would have realized had they worked in 
our day, as we should realize that these States have become a 
nation, not merely because the Constitution and its amend- 
ments so declare ; but has become a nation by the higher law 
of natural causes. 

The people of these States form a nation, because they come 
mainly of kindred races, occupy a homogeneous country, speak 
a common language, have common interests and common 
hopes, are bound together by great natural ways and divisions, 
and knit together by every method of artificial intercommu- 
nication, and cemented by the blood and memories of a great 
war. Being such a nation, then, their national government 
ought in some respects, I think, to have greater and different 
power than the Fathers intended, but in other and more seri- 
ous respects, ought to be, on the other hand, far more defined 
and limited than in their time was necessary. 

The curse of our present time is too much legisla- 
tion, too much patronage, too much interference with 
natural laws. When we stop protecting, and subsidiz- 
ing, and inflating, and meddhng with production, with 
currency, with industry and with natural laws ; when 
we stop artificial aggregations of wealth and great 
chartered companies, and leave associations of persons to 



28 

the limited duration, the natural difficulties, and the natural' 
laws with which nature affects men ; when we put an end to a 
patronage more enormous than ever existed before, and which- 
to-day threatens the peace and prosperity of the country, we- 
may look for really better government, and not, I fear, before, 

No, believe me ; not in preserving the lialance of power 
between the State and Federal authorities ; not in the strictest 
construction of the Constitution, nor in the fullest mainte- 
nance of the rights of the States, will be found the complete 
cure for the evils we are realizing, or whicli threaten us, but 
only is the proper application to our times, and to existing cir- 
cumstances, and to the National as well as State authority, of the 
three great principles upon which our Fathers founded govern- 
ment — the limitation of the powers of government ; the 
localization of those powers ; and the restraint of any privi 
leged class. In those three great principles, when duly applied 
by further limitations in the fundamental laws — State and 
Federal — will be found the true and sufficient remedy, and 
only sufficient remedy, for the evils which beset and threatens 

us. 

I 

THE DUTY OF VIRGINIANS. 

It may be that these views are erroneous, but the difficulties 
and evils to which I have referred do exist, and their causes 
and cure are at least w^orthy 3'our best thought and best study.. 

In the new conditions of our time the need and the oppor- 
tunity of the sons of Virginia will be found. Her central 
position ; her natural relations with the States of the North 
and the South on either hand ; her triedloyalty to her friends ; 
her tidehty to her own convictions, all justify V^irginians in 
taking a leading place in any movement against existing evils, 
and in the measures that should be had to meet them. 



The men of this State had such kirge share in the forma- 
tion of our Government because they had fitted themselves 
by profund study of the principles and needs of government 
for the work they had to do. Once more there is room for 
Virginians to render great public service by doing their part 
to bring about those reforms which have become necessary. 
But to do their part they must be willing to think and to 
labor for themselves, and to see beyond forms in government 
to the real reason and substance of thinsfs. 



But above all, young gentlemen, pray remember that neither 
in public nor in private affairs can there be lasting prosperity 
without justice and wisdom, and truth. For, in the noble 
words which Henry endorsed upon his own copy of his famous 
resolution against taxation, " Whether independence will prove 
a blessing or a curse will depend on the use our people make 
of the blessings a gracious God has bestowed on us. If they 
..are wise, they will be great and happy. If the contrary, they 
will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt a nation. 
Whoever thou art remember this, and in thy sphere practice 
'"virtue thyself, and encourage it in others." 



